


A Den of Wolves

by univeige



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Concubinage, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mages, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con, bad shit, mage pregnancy bs, wolf people?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 11:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10593462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/univeige/pseuds/univeige
Summary: Fifteen years after the kingdom of Apollon falls, his retainers survive as concubines under the rule of their new Queen. Their children with Her are royalty, free of knowledge of their parents' histories. It could be worse. It could be better. Then twelve year old Prince Sujin sees the face of a concubine for the first time, and begins to wonder.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is completely unedited. Tags, worldbuilding details (aka better names), and general polishing will happen when I'm not drowning in schoolwork.

It’s not often that Sujin finds himself wandering the castle alone.

He ate breakfast alone too. At least, he might as well have. Nanami has never made for very good company; Nanami is still young enough that she’s allowed to play with the servants. He had watched, bewildered and amused, as Seoyeon, Nana’s personal maid, had boldly dragged her into a game of tag after breakfast, ignoring the dishes on the table. His own maid, Alina, rolled her eyes and cleaned up after three children yet again.

When he and Qiu were six, Alina had played with them too. But now they’re twelve. Qiu is twelve, and mage princesses begin their private lessons at twelve. Mage princesses get pulled out of bed at the crack of dawn and leave without even telling their twin brothers at twelve.

Stupid mages.

He doesn’t understand why he can’t make things move and sparkle and burst the way Qiu does. He can change his ears and teeth like her, better and more fiercely than her, even, so why can’t he pull colorful lights from tomes like her?

Somewhere in the castle, Seoyeon and Nana are shrieking with delight. They sound so joyful that Su burrows even deeper into his fur cloak, wrinkling his nose. He can’t wait for them to grow up and be as miserable as he is.  

By the time he’s reached his quarters his mood is so sour that he’s practically baring his fangs at the walls. Almost out of habit, he shakes his head for his wolf ears to come out, pricking them to catch sounds human ears cannot. Feelings his sense sharpen, he sniffs, letting scents come to life around him. There’s Qiu and a familiar servant, hours earlier. Layered over that is Alina, and hints of Seoyeon, she must have sprinted through as a shortcut to reach Nana’s quarters. There’s himself with Alina again, going to breakfast.

And then—the scent is faint, and only vaguely familiar. He doesn’t know who it is, but he’s smelled it in the castle before. He doesn’t recall where. Tilting his head, up, he closes his eyes to better focus.

“What are you doing?”

The voice startles him so badly he nearly trips over his cape, whipping his head around to snarl at the newcomer. Alina stares back at him, unimpressed. “Smell anything interesting, Prince Puppy?” she asks, offering a hand to steady himself on. He glares, though he takes her hand. “No. And don’t call me that!”

She snickers. “I’ve never seen you so out of it, your Fuzziness. What’s wrong?”

He hates that she’s right. If Qiu were here, they would never have been snuck up on like this. “I hate mages,” he grumbles.

“Good thing I’m not a mage, then,” Alina says, brushing past him and opening the door to his bedroom. “Well, I have to clean your room now, so please go brood somewhere else. Hey, aren’t you usually off playing around with…” Her eyes widen just a fraction as she realizes. “Oh. Jinqiu starts her magic lessons today, doesn’t she?”

Su can only sigh, ears drooping. Alina looks at him for half a second and says, “You’re in luck. I’m not busy today after I’m done with your room, so you can do something with me.”

That gets his interest, and his ears perk up immediately. “You do things besides cleaning?” he asks.

“Um, obviously,” she scoffs. “I have a life, you know.”

“But… I don’t see you doing anything but your maid stuff,” he says. “Hey, I never see you except after meals and when you’re waking me up and when you make me go to sleep and… and when I call you, I guess. Where do you go?”

“You’ve seriously never thought about where the servants live and sleep,” Alina says. “Why am I not surprised?”

“But that one time I woke up in the middle of the night for water and you brought me a glass…”

“Yes, those _several_ times,” Alina says, frowning. “I had to wake up for all of them.” She disappears into his room. Su follows, ears drooping again. “But you didn’t look tired,” he says, watching Alina shake out his sheets.

“You were half asleep, you fool.” She laughs. “You wouldn’t have noticed that I was too.”

“Where do you sleep, then?”

“The servants have their own quarters,” Alina explains, rearranging a pillow. “Not as grand as yours, and not for just one person. We have our own passageways around the castle, so we’re not seen until necessary.”

“Passageways?” Su asks. “Like… secret tunnels?” A pillow comes flying and smacks him right in the face. “Ow, Alina!”

“Don’t be stupid,” Alina chides him. “They’re just hallways you nobles never have to see. Between what you think are walls, we carry your stuff and wheel carts of food and make your life easier.” She effortlessly catches the pillow when he tosses it back. “I want to see them,” he declares.

“What?”

“I want to see the servant halls!”

Alina turns red,  suddenly clutching the pillow like she might throw it again. “You’re… you’re not allowed! I think. It’s… unbecoming of someone of your blood, or… ugh, I don’t know why you would want to!”

“You said I could do something with you after this!” Su whines. “I want to see where you live! Please?” He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “I won’t tell Mother.” Alina chews on her lip for a second. “Promise?”

“I promise, Alina.”

Alina stares at him for a moment, silent. Finally she says, “Your tail is wagging.”

Su whirls around, reaching for his traitorous tail, only to stop as he grasps nothing. Alina keels over laughing. “Hey!” Su cries. “I knew I didn’t let it out!”

“Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be wagging if it were out,” Alina says. “Alright, I’ll show you where I live. Stop distracting me and go change into something more simple, okay?”

* * *

 

“You won’t tell the queen,” Alina says once more when they’re in the kitchen. “Promise?”

“For the fourth time, I promise,” Su groans, pulling at the gray servant’s robes he’s wearing. “Why do I have to wear this, again?” Alina, not satisfied with his choice of ‘simple’ clothing, had thrown it on him before letting him come. “Just in case,” she says.

“If someone saw me, they’d recognize my hair anyway. And my ears.”

She gives his wolf ear a flick. “Put those away!”

“No way, I want to smell everything!”

“You don’t smell with your ears,” Alina says, exasperated.

“I don’t know how to use my wolf senses without letting them out,” Su admits. “I’m still practicing this.” He sniffs the air. “Are we having lamb tonight?”

“Among other things,” Alina says, pushing him along. “Fine, keep them out. Just tell me if you smell a royal. Wait, stop.” She ducks them behind a curtain just as a tall girl appears around the corner, a load of fresh towels in her arms. Beneath the smell of clean cloth, Su recognizes her scent as that of the servant who fetched Qiu in the morning. “Who is that? Why are we hiding?”

“Umeko,” Alina tells him. “Prince Amihan’s personal maid. If she sees us and mentions it to him, and he mentions it to the queen…”

“Gotcha.”

When Umeko has gone, they rush to the hall she came in from. “Here you go,” Alina says. “Your secret tunnels.” Su pokes his head in, ears twitching. “Wow, it smells like… food! And the servant who does my laundry, and the guy who brings breakfast sometimes, and…”

“Yes, it obviously smells like servants,” says Alina. “Let’s go.”

“It smells like you,” Su points out as Alina leads him down the hall. “And there’s that Umeko girl, and Seoyeon, and… Nana?”

“Princess Nanami?” Alina stops. “Here?”

“I bet Seoyeon already brought her in here millions of times,” Su cries. “She’s probably been having so much fun without me!” Alina rubs her temples. “I’ll have to talk to Seoyeon,” she says.

 “It can’t be that bad that we come in here,” Su says. “It’s not like you’re making us, and we’re not messing anything up. If Mother found out I’d just…” he trails off. He’s not sure how she would react. While he doubts that she would truly mind her children seeing the servants’ quarters, he knows she hates when they break rules, and he’s not sure what the rules about this are. Alina seems to take his silence as understanding, and tugs on his arm to move them along.

“Where are we now?” Su asks after some stretch of time. The last familiar series of smells had been in Prince Ezio’s quarters. Ezio, Amihan, and Umeko’s scents hung heavily in the area before disappearing abruptly and giving away to completely unfamiliar ones. If Su focuses, he can make out roughly five or six people who stay outside of the servants’ halls. But if he doesn’t recognize them and they’re not servants, then… “Who lives here?” he asks, prodding Alina.

“Concubines,” Alina says shortly. “Neither of us should go much further.”

Su remembers then, that only a few select servants are even allowed to tend to the concubines, and that he and his siblings are not to even go near their quarters. “Let’s go further, then.”

Alina sighs, and follows.

She doesn’t let him out of the hall, so Su sniffs up and down the walls until he’s sure he’s picked out each and every individual’s scent, as she watches and rolls her eyes and jumps nervously at any noise. And then, he smells something that makes him stop cold. “What is it?” Alina asks, clearly on edge. “Su, let’s just…”

“This one,” Su says, inhaling deeply. He must look ridiculous to her, but he doesn’t care. “Whoever this is, they were in my quarters earlier. And I’ve smelled them around the castle.”

“Why would a concubine be in your quarters,” Alina replies, more a statement than a question. “Su, please, even if you don’t get in trouble I will.”

“Just five more minutes,” says Su. “You can go if you want, I won’t order you to stay. I just want to know who it is.”

“You can’t go out,” Alina begs. “What if they tell the queen? You’ll still have to explain who brought you here!”

Before she can stop him, Su darts past her down the hall and opens the door.

The concubines’ quarters are plainer than he imagined, closer to the servants’ halls than his own rooms. He always imagined they lived somewhere lavish, based on the flowing, silken robes and elaborate headdresses he’d always seen them wearing, the few times he’d even seen them around the castle at all. But the walls are dull and stone, and the hall is dim. He briefly wonders why there are no windows here. Luckily his eyes had grown accustomed to the dark after wandering through the servants’ hall, with its poor lighting, for so long.

“Su!” Alina hisses from behind him. “Sujin, you have three minutes and I’m leaving!”

He gives her a nod and continues until he reaches another chamber, sniffing again. The scent of the concubine he’s following has been momentarily drowned out by another. Low voices float past from behind the thin silk-screen doors, but for some reason he can’t make out what’s being said even with his enhanced senses. And, he realizes with a jolt, he can smell Umeko again, not as strong as it should be if she were nearby, but much stronger than before.

Tiptoeing past, he tells himself she must be one of the servants that works with the concubines. Yes, that must be it. He glances behind him briefly and sees a flash of blond as Alina pokes her head out the door from the servants’ passage to look at him again. Suddenly ready to call it a day and follow her back to his own room, he’s about to turn back when he hears a door slide open.  

It’s the person he’s been following, he’s sure of it. As the scent floods over him, a woman steps out of a room two doors down, jumping back when she sees him frozen in the middle of the hall. She’s not wearing the fancy robes the concubines wear outside, just a simple white one, and she has no headdress, no veil. He can see her face and hair clearly.

Pink. Her hair is the same shade of pink as his. And her face… she opens her mouth as if she wants to say something, but he’s already scrambling back towards the servants’ door. The second he’s close enough, Alina grabs him and shuts the door. She drags him down the hall until they’ve turned the nearest corner and sets him down, gasping for breath.

He’s still trying to smell if the woman is nearby. Instead, his ears flatten as he realizes someone else has arrived.

Mother.

His eyes meet Alina’s, and she seems to understand. Taking his hand again, she leads him back until all the smells are safe once more.


End file.
